Bulletin

Issue: June 2004

News

You can't let sleeping snorers lie

Designing a tiny electronic device and fitting it inside a tennis ball might seem an odd way to help chronic snorers.

But this is exactly what La Trobe University fifth year Master of Biomedical Engineering student, Liz Mackie, 22, has done. And those suffering positional sleep apnoea - a potentially serious snoring problem whereby people stop breathing in their sleep - will benefit.

Ms Mackie has already received national recognition for her device. The Institution of Electrical Engineers awarded her third prize in its annual Technical Presentation in Adelaide in April. She also won the Hooper Memorial Prize for the best oral presentation of a new medical device, presented by La Trobe's School of Electronic Engineering.

In 2003, Ms Mackie, from Hawthorn, graduated Bachelor of Electronic Engineering from La Trobe and this year will complete her Master of Biomedical Engineering degree which comprises designing and building a useful electronic medical tool.

Her device is officially called a Compliance Monitor for Sleep Apnoea Therapy which she is designing and building in conjunction with the Austin Hospital's Respiratory Department.

Ms Mackie explains that those with positional sleep apnoea have twice as many apnoeas - breathing cessations - when lying on their back as when lying on their sides or stomach.

The Austin Hospital is doing a study using 'positional modification therapy' to treat patients with mild positional sleep apnoea. The study uses the 'tennis ball technique in which a tennis ball in a sling is placed in the centre of patient's backs, making it uncomfortable to sleep on their back.

Researchers faced the problem of knowing whether the patients were actually using the tennis ball and if so, how long they slept on their stomach or sides - or even how long they endured discomfort and slept on their back.

The researchers approached La Trobe's School of Electronic Engineering seeking a device to help resolve this, and the problem was given to Ms Mackie as her final year practical assignment.

Ms Mackie came up with the novel idea of inserting a device inside the tennis ball to record the positions in which the patients slept. She designed and built a triaxial accelerometer, basically two accelerometers joined together to enable them to measure tilt. She has produced several prototypes and is confident she will have a working model reading for testing on patients by mid year.

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